Terrance Gore, a Regular-Season Afterthought, Reclaims His Key Postseason Role

Kansas City’s Terrance Gore, left, after scoring as a pinch-runner in a game at Detroit last month.Credit
Leon Halip/Getty Images

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Terrance Gore took batting practice with the rest of the Kansas City Royals’ reserves Thursday afternoon before Game 1 of their American League division series, though it was hard to see why he bothered. The chances of Gore batting in the series are close to zero.

You may remember Gore from last postseason, a pocket-size dynamo with meager major league experience whom Manager Ned Yost repeatedly trusted to pinch-run. A September call-up, Gore stole three bases in his first three postseason games. He scored the go-ahead run against Baltimore in Game 2 of the American League Championship Series, and added another run in his only World Series appearance, also in Game 2.

This year, the 5-foot-7 Gore spent almost the entire season with Class AA Northwest Arkansas, hitting .284 with 39 steals. The Royals use pinch-runners more frequently than pinch-hitters, and the speed-minded Yost never forgot him. On Thursday, Yost chose Gore over the veteran Jonny Gomes for the final spot on the division series roster.

“When you break down our lineup, you know how speed is important to us,” Yost said. “We have Jarrod Dyson, who is a real weapon off the bench. We identified six spots in our lineup where we could run late, eighth or ninth inning, when we’re a run down or tied to put us in scoring position.

“We don’t have a team that we pinch-hit for, really,” he added. “All of our lefties hit well against lefties, so we don’t really have a spot we identify as a pinch-hitting situation late in the game. All of our guys have been really productive. We think our lineup is really deep. It’s more about running than it is pinch-hitting.”

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The difference is that Gore is an actual baseball player. In five minor league seasons as an outfielder, Gore stole 207 bases and was caught 19 times, a 91.6 percent success rate. Washington never scored a run or stole a base in his only postseason, 1974, when Los Angeles Dodgers closer Mike Marshall famously picked him off in Game 2 of the World Series. And he never played an inning defensively.

Over the past two seasons, the 24-year-old Gore appeared in 20 regular-season games, and none before Aug. 31. (He is still technically a rookie.) Hitless in six plate appearances, he stole eight bases in eight attempts and scored six runs. Entering Thursday night and counting the postseason, Gore is still seeking his first hit, but he has never been caught stealing in 11 tries.

“I’m just trying to go about it the same way I did last year — bring my game on the field, speed of course, and we’ll see what happens,” Gore said before Game 1.

Gore, Dyson and the longtime minor leaguer Paulo Orlando, a 29-year-old rookie from Brazil, give Yost three speed options off the bench. Gomes batted .167 in 12 games as a Royal, and Yost saw only one instance where he might need a pinch-hitter — if he pinch-ran for the designated hitter Kendrys Morales, and the game lasted long enough for Morales’s spot to come up again.

“We opted to go with speed over a bat,” Yost said. “Gore and Dyson are top-notch base stealers. Paulo is one of the fastest guys in the league. It gives us that speed element.”

Earlier this week, Gore had some fun with Kansas City writers, pulling a bottle labeled “J.R. Watkins Pain Relief Liniment” out of his locker and pretending to hush it up as an ancient pinch-runner’s secret. Gore said he rubs it on about 20 minutes before the game, and it activates when he starts limbering up.

“I get ready probably around the fifth, start moving around, get my legs loose and ready to go,” he said. “There are lot of places I go — in the cage, stuff like that. Anything to get my legs ready.”

Correction: October 9, 2015

A picture with an earlier version of this article was published in error. It showed the Royals’ Jarrod Dyson scoring in the seventh inning of a game against the Detroit Tigers on Sept. 19; it did not show Terrance Gore scoring against the Tigers.

A version of this article appears in print on October 9, 2015, on Page B13 of the New York edition with the headline: A Crucial Role Reappears With the Postseason. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe